Boeing and Samsung have taken their partnership a notch higher as the two companies collaborate to bring new mobile technology and applications to the astronaut taxi that Boeing is manufacturing for NASA.
Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, is looking to enhance mobile technology in space by partnering with the world's biggest smartphone making company, Samsung. The partnership aims to bring new mobile technology and apps that can be used for operations handled in the upcoming Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft.
Samsung and Boeing originally signed a memorandum of understanding in October 2012 with the aim to develop advanced display and networking technologies that offer better passenger entertainment and ground-to-air communications. Now, the developing partnership takes a new turn as Boeing plans to use the mobile technology to make the astronauts' time in space more valuable. The company already has six apps that can be used on the CST-100 once it is ready for flight.
Apps developed by Samsung based on the Android mobile platform have been useful in previous space missions. World Map, which is designed for space use, alerts astronauts when the International Space Station flies over a particular part of the world, said Chris Ferguson, director of crew and mission operations for the Boeing Commercial Crew Program, according to Space.com
"Those geopolitical lines aren't necessarily carved on the Earth," Ferguson said during the 2014 National Space Symposium, Tuesday. "You have to rely sometimes on a tool to tell you where you are, and there's a great application on the space station called World Map that we would like to bring over to an Android platform. That's an example of how a NASA astronaut would use it."
The CST-100 is a spacecraft that can carry seven passengers and is bigger than the Apollo but smaller than NASA's Orion. The spacecraft can be pushed to the space using launch vehicles such as Atlas, Delta and Space X Falcon, Network World reports. So far, NASA has awarded Boeing $571 million for the development of CST-100 under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Program. The company plans to offer private space trips as early as 2015.
Use of mobile technology and apps can help improve the experience for private space tourists. Apps can allow them to take photos and share them with people on Earth using onboard Wi-Fi-like tool that establishes ground-to-air connections.
Ferguson is also hopeful that the technology can replace windows in the spacecraft that require extensive maintenance.
"They're heavy. You have to defog them. You have to do a lot of things to keep your window happy," Ferguson said. "What if I just put a camera on the outside and a nice LCD that's perhaps conformal that can wrap on the inside, and I can otherwise see on a screen what I can see outside through the hull? Is that something I could see in the future? Yes, it is."
